


Champions of Tyche

by Remenyke



Series: Unforgotten [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Greece, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Mythology - Freeform, Past Ladybugs and Chat Noirs, kinda well sorta, mild reference to underage sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remenyke/pseuds/Remenyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She waited for the first of what she expects to be an endless stream of questions from the youth. Gods know, she remembered her own sprightly enthusiasm when she followed her own master on a similar walk away from Athens’ conventions, so very long ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Champions of Tyche

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place around 330 BCE in Athens (then, Athēnai), before Alexander the Great ascended the throne.
> 
> I only briefly researched on Ancient Greece, so I might have gotten their references wrong. Please tell me if they are! I’ll make appropriate changes wherever possible. For grammar and spelling too!
> 
> I'm on tumblr @insipidsentimentalist :) I might be posting fanart of this among other ML stuff so come check it out if you have time!

To say he was not impressed is a mild understatement.

The hero he was instructed to meet was framed in wondrous epics his grandfather would croon to his littermates before the final rays of Helios’ chariot sunk beneath the distant shores.

There was the triumph in Mount Etna, where she defeated the terrible serpent amidst flaming lakes and boiling rock; the conquest of Aegina’s lair of flesh-devouring beasts; the exorcism of the Argead’s crown when it became tainted from a curse…

A champion of both Athena and the fickle Tyche, they called her. A warrior birthed of two virgins.

He had come to the Parthenon past the hour of the last worships for the so-called first encounter between himself and the legend herself. Kallias expecting the regal figure of a femme clad in armour and arms, or at least the flowing drapes of a priestess.

It was an ancient-looking woman sitting on the marble steps of the temple waiting for him.

She sat reclined against the sides of the stairs, her body hidden beneath a heavy, black garb reminiscent of tales of mountain hermits. Unmoving eyes set in a face lined with age and cast over in the shadows of her severe brow regarded him as he approached.

Likening himself to the youth of an up and coming, respectable hero, he fought the urge to squirm.

“ _Chaírete_? Are you of _luck_?” He tried. Kallias did not know what he was trying to ascertain, really. If the silent form was the same hero Plagg murmured about, or if she was even still alive – still as a statue, she was. 

“Why, disappointed?” The floating, black sprite drawled, sparing him not a backward glance to drift towards the she-sage. “Were you expecting me to take you to an _erastes_?”

Kallias flushed, cringing unbidden at the thought. He was uncomfortably aware of his own eligibility as an _eromenos_ from the quieted whispers around communal baths. Plagg’s counsel for him to meet the elder hero had put the fleeting thought that he was perhaps another chosen young boy offered to older, male warriors for education.

It was a female that the little black sprite had led him to. It barely qualifies, but who knows. 

The woman’s head bowed a little, the approximation of her shoulders shaking in laughter. Her voice was roughened by age, but held the surprising lilt of younger years. “I have no interest in boys who can’t tell the start and end of my _aidoia_.” 

The red on Kallias’s cheeks deepened and he sputtered. “U-uh…” He realised belatedly that his black companion had disappeared.

She chuckled to herself, beckoning him closer, “Come, _koure_ , help an old lady up.”

Incredulous as he was, he was not without manners. Elders were to be respected, especially those who made it to be as old as she was. Even more so, if her claims of her legacy were true. He wordlessly moved forward to offer an arm that the woman took with a startlingly firm grip to pull herself up.

Kallias startled at a series of minute yelps following two little balls falling from her unfolding lap, reaching out in reflex to catch the imps in his hand. Plagg dangled from the tip of his finger, squealing, while a new, unfamiliar one rolled to rest on his palm. He blinked down at the wide-eyed features of the red creature, noting the similar lack of nose on its round face.

“ _Chaírete_ , Kallias,” the decidedly female sprite called up to him. “I’m Tikki.”

The legendary spots on red marked Tikki where her brows would have met. Proof it was.

Dark, rippling robes were a convention that better served stealth of the sprites, he considered as he was leaned on. The elder woman gently lifted Plagg’s warm body onto his outstretched fingers proper, before pointing towards a small path.

Kallias inclined his head, half-bowing in a delayed respect he had neglected to pay, “My apologies. I did not expect…well.”

“The stories didn’t mention me turning into an old crone,” She patted his arm in silent pardon of his initial impudence. “Age is not something even heroes can defy.”

Granted, most heroes were not gifted eternal youth, but he subconsciously expected more from the blessed chosen of goddesses.

They ambled along the chosen footway while the little warm sprites sitting on his upturned palm squabbled away in an oddly childlike manner. Kallias could not understand the high pitched voices rambling away in their old tongue. He wondered if the inhuman creatures knew even their own age. Would gods, as little as these were, be able to pinpoint their own creations?

The old woman took time as an elderly would, in no hurry to get to their destination. She waited for the first of what she expect to be an endless stream of questions from the youth. Gods know, she remembered her own sprightly enthusiasm when she followed her own master on a similar walk away from Athens’ conventions, so very long ago.

“They say you’re a Spartan.”

“They say a lot of things,” she replied easily, a knowing curve on her thin lips. Her wan but soft eyes regarded him sideways. “What do you think? Am I a Spartan?”

She was obviously not battle-fit, but not even Sparta would force elderly into fights, would they? “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

Kokkinelídé offered him a kind smile, stretching a wrinkled hand to pat at the thick curls on the boy’s crown. “Good. Now you learn.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr @insipidsentimentalist Come take a look :)
> 
> Edit: Judiejodia! Thank you for the translation advice! "Agóri" for boy has been changed to κουρος "koure". Ladybug's new Latin-to-Greek name is now "kokkinelídé" (likely to be wrong for the time period but it's the closest at the moment).
> 
> Okay, I've decided to change the boy's name from "Parsian" to "Kallias". Parsian might be too close to "Persian" which the Greeks were in conflict with for a long time back then oops. Kallias, or Callias was the name of the a very rich Athenian sometime mid-5th century BCE who served in wars and later became an ambassador of Athens. Wrong time period, but it is a more probable name. Added bonus that Cat Noir in this fic might have, story-wise, inspired Kallias' naming.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Chaírete: Greek for “Hello” (I’m really not sure if this is the proper greeting they would have back then, or even now help me please!
> 
> Koure/Agóri: Greek for “boy”
> 
> Aidoia: Greek for “vagina”. Regarded by some as a euphemism which apparently also means “things to be ashamed of”
> 
> Other notes:
> 
> Helios: God of the sun. The sun’s passage through the sky was said to be Helios riding his flaming chariot from the Eastern horizon to the West.
> 
> Mount Etna: A volcanic mountain on the island of Sicily.
> 
> Aegina: one of the Saronic Islands of Greece.
> 
> Argead’s crown: a reference to the Argead dynasty, the ruling family of Greece at the time (correct me if I’m wrong!)
> 
> Erastes: the idealised older male counterpart in a pederastic relationship – a sexual relationship between a grown man and a boy (I honestly found this by chance and briefly thought of introducing Ladybug as an elder male but I’m not about to commit sin on my first ML fic. Maybe next time :P)
> 
> Eromenos: the idealised younger male counterpart in a pederastic relationship – a sexual relationship between a grown man and a boy
> 
> Athens: Capital city of Greece since at least 1400BC. One of the oldest cities in the world.
> 
> Parthenon: Now in ruins, it is a former temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.
> 
> Athena: Goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, mathematics, strength, war strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. Virgin patron goddess of Athens. Slow to anger, will not fight without reason. Sounds very much like Ladybug eh?
> 
> Tyche: Goddess of luck and destiny. Known to be capricious and unpredictable, and attributed for any natural occurrence or disasters, or political events that arise without a cause. Wiki claims that she was reviled amongst poets as a “fickle harlot” (luck is a fickle mistress, yes?). She would make a very good cover for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s powers, I would think. Tyche is the romanised version of “Τύχη” which means “luck”.


End file.
